Gavin Hopley died in hospital six days after the attack
A teenager who died after being kicked in the head was the victim of an unprovoked attack, a court has heard.
Gavin Hopley, 19, died in hospital six days after the incident in Oldham in February 2002.

Mr Hopley struck the back of his head when he fell unconscious to the ground in Glodwick, Manchester Crown Court was told on Monday.

Mohsin Raza has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Hopley, who had been on a night out with friends.

Prosecutor Mukhtar Hussain QC said that before the incident Mr Hopley and his friends Gareth Wrigley and Thomas McVey were chased down the street by a group of Asian men, which did not include Mr Raza.

'No warning'

After the chase, Mr Wrigley was attacked in a back yard by a number of Asians wielding sticks and Mr McVey was kicked, he told the court.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Hopley, who had become separated from his friends, was seen by a witness - Mohammed Zubair - walking down nearby Greengate Street, looking "panicky and frightened".

A benefit cheat who defrauded more than £31,000 has been jailed for 30 months.
Mohamed Cali, of Stonehill Court, Northampton, claimed housing benefit and Job Seekers' Allowance despite being in paid employment.

The judge at Northampton Crown Court said Cali's fraudlent claims were a wholesale attack on the welfare system.

The jury heard how the 24-year-old also took on a false identity in Croydon and fraudently claimed benefits there at the same time.

The three relatives of a suspected suicide bomber from Derby appeared before the Old Bailey yesterday.

Father-of-two Omar Khan Sharif (27), of Northumberland Street, Normanton, was wanted by Israeli security forces after an alleged failed attempt to blow himself up outside Mike's Bar in Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 30.

His body was found floating off the Israeli coast on May 12.

Another man, Asif Mohammed Hanif (21), of Hounslow, London, succeeded in detonating explosives at the scene, killing himself, two men and a woman and injuring 50 others.

An Israeli postmortem on Sharif's body revealed he had drowned. An inquest in Derby has been opened but not yet carried out.

A Northamptonshire teacher standing trial for rape admitted it was a mistake to send two boys a large number of text messages.
History teacher Wasim Majid, 27, told Northampton Crown Court he should have listened to advice from his seniors when they tried to warn him about the dangerous position he was getting in to.

The history teacher denied all the charges against him

Mr Majid is accused of raping one 15-year-old boy and two charges of indecency with a child and two counts of indecent assault.

The former owner of a Whitchurch takeaway ordered to pay more than £20,000 in fines and costs after a visit by health inspectors has had the figure reduced by £10,000 on appeal. Zeki Akdogan, aged 34, of Wheatsheaf Drive, Whitchurch, was found guilty in October last year of failing to comply with an improvement notice, failing to analyse potential food hazards, neglecting to keep premises clean and failing to ensure food was properly stored at his Whitchurch shop.

A Dog was found starving and surrounded by excrement after being left to fend for itself for more than a month. Newcastle magistrates were told the owner of the two-year-old rottweiler, Akib Akhtiar, told RSPCA inspectors: "I'm not cruel and I want my dog back," when they removed the dog from his care.

Akhtiar, of Spratslade Drive, Dresden, denied causing unnecessary suffering to an animal, but was convicted by magistrates after a trial yesterday.

The court heard the dog, called King, had not been fed or watered sufficiently for at least four weeks and had been living off it's own body tissue in a yard full of week-old dog excrement.

A Former security guard has been ordered to pay more than £1,600 compensation after vandalising hospital equipment. Majid Mesawar, of John Street, Hanley, trashed computers and optical equipment in the Accident and Emergency department of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire on September 13 this year.

Christina Bennett, prosecuting, told the court how 19-year-old Mesawar, who admitted criminal damage, had been waiting in the A &E department when he began attacking hospital property.

Neil Chawla, defending, said Mesawar had been waiting for some time.

Mesawar was ordered to pay £1,662.92 in damages to the hospital, but no court costs.

He had to wait poor thing, so he throws a temper tantrum and smashes everything to hand.